The thing that had struck the Vampire Hunter did not look like it belonged in the world.
Its body was blackened, not by shadow, but by searing burned through and through, its muscles shriveled and exposed in patches where skin had sloughed off long ago. What remained was a grotesque tapestry of ruin, a thing that had been flayed and charred in turns, left to fester in the dark. It had no clothes, yet shame was not a concept applicable to it. What covered its form was soot, grime, and blood that had dried like lacquer over sinew, a second skin of suffering.
It moved like hunger given shape.
The Knight drew his sword with a ring of steel, but even that sound felt blunted in the presence of the figure now taking a step toward them. The air thickened, heavy with the scent of burnt flesh and old iron. His gauntlet tightened around the hilt, knuckles pressing white against the leather grip. He raised his shield in one practiced motion, the worn wood and steel a familiar weight against his forearm.
The thing surged forward.
“On guard!” he barked, but it was already too late.
A blur of scorched flesh and twitching limbs twisted through the air, faster than any mortal thing had a right to be. The Knight barely brought his blade up in time. The creature swiveled mid-lunge like a serpent, its movements devoid of hesitation, devoid of thought. A clawed arm extended with a speed that defied the natural order, fingers curled into talons that gleamed wet under the flickering torchlight.
Steel met bone with a high-pitched screech that echoed through the underground vault, the impact shuddering up the Knight’s arm. His teeth clenched. The thing did not recoil. It did not flinch. It pressed forward, relentless, its weight driving him back a half-step.
Then,
The blow struck his helmet, carving a molten gash across the side. Pain flared hot and sudden, blood running in a thin, searing line down his cheek. The taste of copper filled his mouth. He staggered, his boot scraping against the uneven stone.
The creature then crouched low, easily sweeping the knight off its legs in a snake edge sweep, completely and easily toppling the slower than usual knight.
The Knight fell on its side and the creature rose up both claws raised up and ready for a descending finisher slash.
Ludwig however rushed forward, trying to intercept.
“MOVE!” Ludwig snapped, but the command came moments too late.
The creature pivoted. A single, fluid motion, all grace and horror, instead of the downed Knight, It threw itself onto Ludwig like a slab of falling stone. No roar, no scream, only that awful, guttural rasping breath that sounded like lungs unfamiliar with the act of inhaling.
It pinned him. Its weight crushed his ribcage to the stone.
Ludwig grunted as the air was forced from his lungs in a rush- though he didn’t have any lungs. One leg trapped his weapon, keeping Oathcarver locked under his thigh. He tried to bring his offhand up, slamming it into the thing’s side with a glowing sigil etched across his palm. The impact should have sent it reeling. Should have burned.
It did nothing.
The creature didn’t flinch.
It leaned closer, inches from his face. Its features were a map of suffering, lips half-melted, skin sloughing, teeth exposed in a permanent snarl. Its breath was wet and clicking, like cartilage snapping underwater.
It sniffed.
A deep, primal inhale that dragged air through whatever remained of its twisted nasal cavity. Then another, slower this time, nostrils flaring near Ludwig’s collar. Its claws twitched once on his chest. The muscles in its arms tensed, ready to dig down.
But it didn’t.
It stopped.
The Knight scrambled to his feet, blood trickling down his cheek, rage and confusion twisting his features. He raised his sword again, the blade trembling slightly in his grip. His breath came hard and fast, his pulse a drumbeat in his ears.
The Vampire Hunter groaned in the corner. Still alive, barely.
And the thing… paused.
It tilted its head, just slightly. A jerking, mechanical motion. As if something within it had broken. One of its clawed hands trembled.
Ludwig met its eyes, or what was left of them. Hollow pits, like sockets full of coals. And yet… there was something.
Recognition?
Then,
CRACK.
The pommel of the Baltimore Knight’s sword came down like a judge’s gavel on the creature’s exposed skull. The force of the strike was clean, and brutal. The sound that followed wasn’t a cry, it was a dull thud and a rattling shiver as the thing collapsed onto Ludwig in a heap.
Ludwig shoved the body off him, staggering to his feet. He hurriedly grabbed his weapon, and readied for another round.
A stillness fell.
Even the mist seemed to hold its breath.
The Vampire Hunter dragged himself up, gripping the wall. His fingers left smears of blood on the damp stone. His eyes were wide, pale, unblinking. His hand found the hilt of his sword again, trembling.
“What… in the Abyss was that?” he said, voice barely a whisper. Blood slowly trickled down his lips.
The Knight spoke, “Nothing I know to be honest, but since she didn’t kill the young noble, I didn’t go for the killing blow,”. He was already kneeling by the collapsed figure. Cautious, but curious. He reached out and, with gloved hands, rolled the scorched body onto its back.
He froze.
“…It’s a woman,” he muttered, breath catching. “Or… used to be.”
Ludwig walked closer, brushing soot and grit from his shoulder. The creature now lying before them was no mindless beast, not in body. Even with her limbs twisted, her flesh cooked black and pierced with rusted stakes, there was a shape, no, a memory, of humanity in her form.
The burns were old. Layered. Some parts of her flesh charred black, others grey-white and dry like brittle paper. Her chest barely rose and fell. No wounds bled. Nothing on her body seemed fresh. She had been like this for a long time.
And yet she’d fought with the strength of ten men.
‘She must be the one the quest spoke of,’ Ludwig thought, eyeing her warped chest, half sunken, half swollen where something pulsed faintly under the bone.
The Vampire Hunter pulled his weapon from his sheath. His knuckles were white.
“Let’s kill it now, while it’s down,” he said, lifting the blade overhead. “We don’t get another chance. You saw what it did.”
Ludwig stepped between them, one hand catching his wrist.
“Oi. Calm down.”
“Sir Davon, this is guild business!” the Hunter barked. “That thing isn’t something from this world! If it was trapped inside that barrier, it must have been for a reason, this must have been the reason for the Old Hunter base being built here!”
“In case you haven’t noticed, your guild is dead,” Ludwig said flatly. “You found no legacy here. There’s no glory. No revenge to be had. Only consequences.”
The Hunter hesitated, lips trembling. “She might be a monster…”
“She might be a victim,” Ludwig cut in. “And looking at what’s been done to her, I know which side of the blade she was on.”
The Knight stepped forward and lowered the Hunter’s sword with a single motion.
“I agree,” he said simply.
The Vampire Hunter clenched his jaw, but said no more.
Ludwig turned back to the figure and knelt beside her, extending one hand.
“[Inspect],” he whispered.
***
Name: [REDACTED]
Title: [REDACTED]
Race: [REDACTED]
Level: ???
{Status Effects}
[Wrath Core Fusion – Inert State] [Mind Flayed Residuum][Mental Distortion][Flesh Distortion] [Soul Distortion][Flayed Flesh][Charred Flesh] [Staked] [Extreme Agony]
Lore: An unknown being, captured and tortured for what looked like a long time. No one left alive knows the reason for, or why this person was introduced to such heinous acts.
***
Ludwig’s brows furrowed.
The interface didn’t treat her like a monster. It didn’t even register her as a threat now. She was something else. A person, barely, but still a person.
“What the hell did they do to you…” Ludwig muttered. Not expecting an answer.
And yet, even in his cold, undead chest, a faint flicker stirred.
Something dangerously close to pity.
Something that could not be killed so easily.
Something, perhaps, that remembered what it once meant… to be human.
Her fingers twitched.
A minute spasm, barely more than a death rattle, yet it made the Knight stiffen, his sword half-raised before he forced himself to lower it. The creature, no, the woman, did not rise. Her body remained still, save for the faint, irregular pulse beneath her ruined ribs.
Ludwig leaned closer.
Up close, the extent of the damage was worse. The stakes driven through her limbs were not mere iron, but something darker, their surfaces etched with glyphs that shimmered faintly in the torchlight. Binding marks. Torture marks. Each one a calculated cruelty, designed not just to pierce flesh, but to anchor something within it.
And then he saw the collar.
Half-buried beneath layers of scar tissue, the metal was blackened and warped, but the engraving was still legible, a single word, repeated in a looping, archaic script.
“CONTAIN.”
His stomach turned, though he had no proper stomach.
This was no accident. No mere possession, no simple curse. Someone had built her into this. Someone had taken a living soul and reforged it into a prison for something worse.
The Knight must have seen it too. His gauntlet tightened around his sword. “They couldn’t have just killed her,” he said, voice low. “They made sure she couldn’t die.”
A breath rattled in the woman’s throat. Not a sob. Not a scream. Just air passing through a ruin that had once been lungs.
Ludwig exhaled slowly.
‘What sin could one commit to be treated such…’